November 23, 2004

Just outside Cuzco, the huge granite fortress built by the Incas is a truly magical place.
It is said that Cuzco and surroundings were designed in the shape of a Puma with the fortress of Saqsayhuamán (or “Saqsaywaman”) as the Pumas teeth.
The individual stones are already huge, but the scale of the whole site is absolutely breathtaking.

November 16, 2004

This is one of the most spectacular train trips one can take: the historical “Lezard Rouge” (red lizard”) train travels through stony desert landscapes, mountains, gorges, but also stops at green oases.
The Lezard rouge used to serve the phosphate mines from Metaloui, but nowadays it is only a tourist attraction.
The ancient carriages are a sight themselves, but the main sight is the scenery the train passes through.
The train needs less than an hour for the distance and then returns the same way it has come - giving you a second opportunity to take pictures of the spots you missed the first time!

You can see landscapes like this from the train.

PS: I just had the opportunity to undertake two even more spectacular train journeys: from Cuzco to Machu Picchu in a moder panorama train and from Cuzco to Puno (near Titicaca lake) in the Inca Express.
this, however, is a different story and you’ll see some pictures from those trips soon on this site…

I have moved my weblog-links from the right-hand menu to a special page, so there now is space for a short description.
There are many fascinating sites there!
Of course, there also is the photo and travel links section of Travelphoto.net.

The Month of Photography extends today to other European capitals. This first event organised with Berlin and Vienna precedes a great European Month which will join together in 2006, Bratislava, Moscow and Rome. For this first edition supported by the Culture 2000 programme of the European Union, each city organizes in November its own program. Adopting a common communication,
…more

November 10, 2004

November 9, 2004

back in 1980, the Soviet Union was still intact. Who would have imagined that this empire was about to break only a few years after?
Here you see a church converted into a museum of the communist revolution.

Forever Young…

Only two years before his death, Leonid Brezhnev is presented as a young man.

… and even Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (name of war: “Lenin” - a reference to the Siberian river Lena…) looks like a young man.
Just to recall: 1980 was the year of the Olympics in Moscow that were boycotted by many Western states.
It also was the year that Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov was banished.
Sakharov was one of the most renowned scientists the Soviet Union ever produced, contributed a lot to cosmology and was responsible for much of the Soviet Unions nuclear programme (actually, he also was known as the “father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb”).
He won the the 1975 Nobel Peace Price for his fight for human rights.
Almost as well known as Sakharov himself was his wife Yelena Bonner, who was also banished at the same time.

I was often approached by Russians who wanted to discuss modern literature, be it Russian, American or German - intellectual curiosity was much stronger than the fear of an autocratic regime.

November 3, 2004

Unfortunately, my slides from 1980 are already starting to fade, reason enough to scan the most important ones!
This is a picture I took in Kizhi Pogost (Karelia, Russia) back in 1980.
Kizhi Pogost is a museum village displaying the art of Russian wood archtiecture and was recognised as a “Unesco’s World Heritage Site” in 1990.

All the building, including this 22-towered church, were constructed without the use of a single nail!
The surrounding landscape very much enhances the atmosphere of tranquility.

November 1, 2004

12 years ago, in 1992, I visited the Pinnawela elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka.
Now, rescanning some images from Sri Lanka brought back some very fond memories!
Pinnawela elephant orphanage is a truly unique institution that raises motherless young elephants.
Of course, there now also are many growm-up elepjants at Pinnawela and it is a special experience to see all the big and small elephants take a bath in the nearby river..
The “stars” of the orphanage are the baby elephants however, who already wait for their bottle(s) of milk and the special treat, a sweet rice ball.
Read about Pinnawela elephant orphanage at the Absolut Elephant
I was glad to read that Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage will not only be maintained but even upgraded.
Also, I was quite surprised to read how the dung produced bythe elephants helps to finance the Pinnawela orphanage - in the form of business cards!